To Save His Baby

by Judi Lind

  Wrapping his arms around his abdomen to protect his throbbing rib cage, Gil hobbled around the metal tables bolted to the floor to join her. Acutely aware of his bare feet on the cold tile, he helped wrestle the unconscious guard onto his back. Valerie peeled off her cotton jacket to stanch the blood flowing from the gaping hole in the man’s chest. Her quick fingers sought his pulse.

  “He’s still alive! Go into the reception room and pick up the white phone on the wall. Press zero—that’ll connect you to the hospital paging system. Tell them we need a trauma team in the basement stat. Tell the operator we’ve got a code. That’s important. Got it?”

  “Trauma team, code, stat. Got it.”

  Sweat streaming down his face from the effort of forcing his injured body to hurry, Gil ignored his own pain and did Valerie’s bidding. After repeating the message twice for the disbelieving hospital operator, he returned to the autopsy room.

  “What can I do to help?”

  Valerie was straddling the man’s prone body, pressing his chest in a rhythmic motion. “Go wait in the hall to direct the trauma team.”

  He felt like a small boy who had been given a meaningless task to get him out of the way. Still, he knew his fractured ribs wouldn’t allow him to perform CPR. He glanced at the ominously gray face of the security guard, feeling helpless and responsible. But there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it.

  Except track down the assassin—and whoever hired him.

  He’d put those bastards safely behind bars if it was the last thing he ever did.

  AN HOUR LATER word filtered down from the operating room that the injured security guard was in critical but stable condition.

  Valerie heaved a grateful sigh and sank into the plastic chair. It seemed like half of Phoenix was crowded into the morgue reception room. Just as the guard was being hustled off to surgery, the Phoenix PD, Maricopa County Sheriffs Department and hospital security had invaded the morgue in force. Pandemonium reigned as conflicting commands and questions were barked from every direction.

  Within moments, however, a pecking order was established and a detective from the Phoenix PD took command.

  Detective Ferdy Sanchez was short and compact, reminding Valerie of a fire hydrant. His dark simian face was pleasantly ugly, but his sharp black eyes missed nothing. After ushering everyone into the hall, he called for a crime-scene unit, thanked the deputies and hospital security force for their prompt response and dismissed everyone except his own officers.

  Then he turned his unflinching gaze on Valerie and Gil.

  “Ya know, hospitals are just full of surprises. I had an uncle once who went into the hospital down in Nogales for a broken leg. He came out dead. Blood clot. Now we’ve got shooters in the morgue, drumming up business for ya. Another surprise. And they say police work is exciting. So, Dr. Murphy, suppose you tell me about all the excitement.”

  Her brain, her instincts, her entire life history shouted at her to confess the whole story to this officer. Dump it in Gil’s lap where it belonged and let him explain. But her heart, her damned betraying heart, urged her to keep his confidence.

  “There was a fire alarm,” she said, “and I was trying to get my patient, Mr. Branton, to safety. We, uh, didn’t think we should use the elevator, so we took the stairs.”

  “Smart move.” Sanchez took a battered notepad from inside his jacket and scribbled a note. “So I guess you lost track of what floor you were on and missed the lobby, ending up in the basement, instead? Makes sense.”

  Valerie nodded mutely. Gil had edged to the background, as if by fading from view he’d disappear from the policeman’s memory.

  Sanchez tapped his ballpoint against his lower teeth. “Now let’s see if I got this straight. You think the building’s on fire so you flee, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you accidently overshoot the lobby and end up in the cellar, right?”

  Not wanting to lie, Valerie smiled vaguely.

  “So how’d you come to end up in the morgue? Seems to me a prudent person would have left the building.”

  Valerie licked her lips. “Someone was following us, so we hid.”

  “Aha!” He smacked his forehead with the heel of his hand. “Well, it’s all clear to me now. You’re in the middle of an evacuation and someone’s behind you on the stairs. ’Course you’d assume it was somebody with a gun intent on popping you and your patient. So naturally you’d duck into the morgue to hide out.”

  Sanchez grinned broadly and she gave him another vague smile in return.

  In a flash the jocular light disappeared from his dark eyes, replaced by an intense stare that bored straight through her. “Cut the crap, Doc. I’d ground my four-year-old if he couldn’t gimme a better story than that one.”

  When Gil called her Doc, it had the sweet ring of an endearment. Sanchez made it sound like an accusation. The elevator door pinged open, saving her from the necessity of inventing a new lie. Martin Abel, the hospital administrator, stepped out quickly, followed by Fierce Pierce and Ed Grant, the orderly who’d assisted her in the ER.

  Relieved by the sight of familiar faces, Valerie rushed to greet them. “What are you guys still doing here? You should have been home hours ago.”

  “We were,” Pierce said. “I hate to be the one to break the news, Valerie, but you’ve been in this hospital over twenty-four hours.”

  Disbelief was quickly replaced by realization, followed quickly by bone-numbing fatigue. She’d already put in a twelve-hour stretch when she’d been summoned to the ER yesterday afternoon.

  Pierce poked a fiery red curl behind her ear. “We were just coming back on shift when we heard what happened down here. Are you all right?”

  “Do you mind?” Martin Abel snapped, pushing past the others. “Dr. Murphy, what happened down here? I heard someone was shot. Should I phone the legal staff?”

  Valerie almost laughed. Like most bean counters, Abel wasn’t worried about anyone being actually injured, just whether or not it was going to cost money.

  Before she could respond to his callous query, Sanchez wedged between them. “I hate to break up this little reunion, but this is a police investigation. So if you’re not directly involved in this incident, I’d suggest you folks head on back to your stations.”

  Abel puffed up like a blowfish. “Excuse me, Sergeant, but—”

  “Detective.”

  “What?”

  “Detective, not Sergeant. Sanchez. And you would be?”

  The administrator handed Sanchez an embossed business card and explained the importance of his being fully informed of all aspects of the investigation.

  “A helluva plan, Mr. Abel. Sir. Why don’t we just carry this little talk up to your office where we can have some privacy? Think your staff could rustle up coffee? I could use that caffeine kick right now, even though the missus says I need to wean myself off it. Says I’m hyper, if you can imagine that. Now where’d you say your office was? The top floor, I imagine.”

  Valerie stuffed her knuckle into her mouth to keep from laughing. She’d never seen anyone wrest control from Martin Abel, but Ferdy Sanchez had the situation well in hand. After giving last-minute instructions to his assistant, Sanchez shooed the ER crew back upstairs and waited for the next elevator to transport the rest up to Abel’s office.

  When Sanchez had comfortably settled himself behind Abel’s desk, he turned his attention on Gil. Valerie twisted in her seat to watch Gil’s face.

  “Mr. Branton, is it?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I understand you were brought into the emergency room last night, the victim of a violent assault.”

  “Yes.”

  He fished a paper out of his pocket, unfolded it and scanned the fine print. “The report done by the sheriffs office says you got into a tussle with some mean-spirited bikers, that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Not real talkative, are you, Mr. Branton?”

  “Ju
st trying to answer your questions, Detective.”

  As if unable to abdicate control for even another moment, the hospital administrator jumped up and strode behind his desk. Pointing a shaking finger at Gil, he rasped, “I remember you! You’re that accountant sent by the FDA to audit our pharmaceutical accounts.”

  When Gil didn’t respond to his claim, Martin Abel turned excitedly to the detective. “I always thought there was something strange about him. He disappeared, you know. Hung around the hospital, poking his nose into everyone’s business for weeks, then poof! One morning he doesn’t show up. No goodbye or even thanks for a great time! If you ask me, the man’s a fraud.”

  As if exhausted by his tirade, he propped a hip on the corner of the desk. Taking a crisp white handkerchief from his pocket, he mopped his forehead. He fingered the lock of hair he kept swirled over his pate in a losing effort to conceal his baldness.

  Raising his chin triumphantly, he turned to Detective Sanchez.

  “This man should be arrested immediately!”

  The bulldog of a detective swiveled back in Abel’s chair. “On what grounds, sir?”

  “Wh-why of...of causing trouble, setting off a false fire alarm.”

  Sanchez raised an eyebrow. “Did you set off that fire alarm, Mr. Branton?”

  “No.”

  “Can’t arrest a man for something he didn’t do, sir.”

  Quivering with rage, Abel turned his wrath on Valerie. “It’s her fault. She never should have gone along with this man’s crazy scheme and moved him from his hospital bed. It’s negligence at best, medical malfeasance at worst!”

  Martin Abel was a small man in every way, Valerie thought. His slight stature seemed to diminish his own opinion of his worth. He was always on a rampage, railing at someone. She’d never had any personal conflict with him, but plenty of the junior staff complained of petty clashes with him.

  Taking a deep breath to calm the waves of indignation boiling inside, she managed a quiet and, she thought, calm tone. “Martin, I realize you’re upset, but before you accuse me of malpractice again, I suggest you think about the ramifications of such an action. I promise you, I will sue you for libel.”

  “Slander,” Sanchez interjected.

  “Pardon?”

  “Slander. Libel is if he writes falsehoods about you. Slander is if he defames you in front of other people.”

  “Now see here, Officer—”

  “Mr. Abel,” the detective interrupted, “I think your personnel concerns can wait. Right now, you have a patient who was chased through your hospital by an armed man, who, I might add, is still on the loose, thereby endangering even more patients in your hospital. So if you’d just have a seat over there while I interrogate the victim...”

  Clearly unaccustomed to being ordered about in his own office, Abel grumbled but complied. When he’d slumped back against the cushions of the sofa, the detective glanced at his notes.

  “Now, where were we?” He picked up his pen and rapped his lower teeth for a full ten seconds. “Ah, yes, Mr. Branton. I believe you were getting ready to tell me what happened.”

  “At the biker bar?”

  “Yeah. And latter, as well. I’d like to hear how an armed man came to stalk you in the hospital. Do you live here in the Valley, Mr. Branton?”

  “No. At least, not permanently. I’ve been here on, uh, temporary duty off and on for the past several months.”

  “Temporary duty. Are you with the military?”

  “No. I, uh, haven’t been working lately. I was involved in a...accident in Los Angeles.”

  Sanchez cocked his head and scratched his chin. “You seem to be accident-prone, Mr. Branton. So after your...accident, you came back to Phoenix, is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “When was that?”

  “Yesterday. No, the day before.”

  The detective’s eyebrows raised and he leaned back in the chair, calmly assessing Gil. “Didn’t take you long to find trouble, did it?”

  “I guess not.”

  Martin Abel rose to his feet and tossed a sofa cushion onto the floor. “This is just a waste of time! Why aren’t you out searching the grounds for the gunman? I don’t see how all these questions are going to help, Detective.”

  “I guess that’s why I’m the policeman and you’re not,” Sanchez calmly responded.

  “I shall be speaking to your superiors later today,” Abel threatened as he sank back onto the couch.

  Ignoring his outburst, Sanchez picked up his pen and scrawled something in his notebook. “What did you argue with those fellas about, Mr. Branton? The bikers, I mean.”

  Gil shrugged. “I don’t recall.” He rubbed the white bandage taped to his temple. “Guess they smacked me pretty good.”

  “I guess so.” Sanchez nodded slowly. “Let’s leave that for now. So you came to the hospital. When was the first time you realized you were in danger?”

  Valerie’s mind wandered as Gil picked up the story from when she’d entered his room and discovered a man trying to suffocate him. That he was holding back information was obvious. But how much and why? Why not just tell the truth and ask for police protection? That was what an innocent person would do.

  Did his unwillingness to involve the authorities mean Gil was guilty of more than a conveniently forgetful memory?

  A knock on the door dragged her back to the present. She looked up as a uniformed officer stepped in. Sanchez beckoned silently and the patrolman approached the desk and murmured something in his ear.

  When the officer departed, Sanchez rose to his feet. “They’ve gathered up five men who were in the building, but don’t work here. Let’s go downstairs and see if you recognize any of them.”

  Silently the trio trooped behind the detective. The five men were being detained in the chapel on the first floor. Valerie had expected a more formal lineup, but instead, they were ushered into the small room where the potential suspects occupied the first pew.

  “All right, gentlemen, could you stand up, please?” The young patrolman gestured to the men.

  When the quintet stood, Gil and Valerie were directed to walk in front of them. “Take your time,” Sanchez admonished. “If you need to see a profile or would like them to speak, we can do that.”

  Valerie felt the curious gazes of the five men follow her as she silently marched past them.

  All five fit the general description of the man who’d tried to kill them. One even had a striking resemblance to the killer. But when she looked into his eyes, this man lacked the reptilian coldness that had emanated from the hit man.

  She waited until Gil had traced her footsteps, then they turned to Sanchez.

  “Recognize anybody?”

  “Nope,” Gil said.

  “No, I didn’t, either,” Valerie said. “Look, Detective, I’m out on my feet and I need to get my patient back into bed.”

  Sanchez’s mobile eyebrows raised northward again. “Your patient? Aren’t you an OB—a baby doctor?” He gave Gil an evil grin. “Not making scientific history, are ya, Mr. Branton?”

  Gil’s eyes rolled in disgust at the feeble joke.

  “Since I’m the one who disconnected Mr. Branton’s intravenous fluids and removed him from his hospital bed, he’s my responsibility until I get him back under the care of his attending physician. That makes him my patient. For the moment.”

  She knew she was stretching the truth, but she was bone weary and mentally exhausted. She had to get home and rest so she could sort out this mess.

  She had to get away from Gil Branton.

  Sanchez expelled a frustrated sigh. “All right, folks, thanks for your cooperation.” He turned to the young patrolman. “Make sure you have names, addresses and phone numbers, then let ’em go.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The detective made for the exit of the chapel, Martin Abel, Gil and Valerie on his heels. Sanchez paused in the doorway. “Make sure you double-check their drivers’ licenses,” he
called to the patrolman.

  When they were back in the wide corridor outside the chapel, Sanchez looked at Gil. “You sure you didn’t recognize any of those men?”

  “I’m sure.”

  He hooked a thumb toward the chapel. “When Officer Carpenter finishes with them, give him an address and phone number where we can reach you. And nobody leaves town, got it?”

  Valerie nodded numbly as Gil went back into the chapel. She started to follow, but Sanchez grabbed her sleeve.

  “I hope you know what you’re doing, Doc. This guy smells like trouble. Big trouble.”

  She swallowed a mirthless laugh. The policeman wasn’t telling her anything she didn’t already know. Didn’t bitterly know. “Thank you for your concern, Detective, but there’s no need. Mr. Branton is my temporary patient. Nothing more.”

  “Yeah, sure.” He started back toward the elevator bank, then turned and gave her a final caution. “If this thing goes sour, you could lose more than your license, Doc. You could lose your life.”

  After he stepped into the elevator and disappeared behind the sliding doors, her hand settled on her abdomen as she stood for a long moment contemplating his warning. Sanchez was right; she had more important things to do than protect Gil Branton.

  She couldn’t believe the man she’d known so intimately could be involved in criminal activity, but what other explanation could there be? It was time to find out.

  A strand of hair had come loose from her braid. She threaded it back into place. Gil was going to give her some answers right now.

  Straightening her shoulders, she strode into the chapel. The young officer was the only occupant of the small room. He tossed aside the magazine he was skimming. “I still need your home address, phone and beeper numbers, Dr. Murphy.”

  “Where’s Gil?”

  “Pardon?”

  “My patient, the man whose information you just took down. Where is he?”

  The patrolman shrugged and thumbed at a nearly hidden door beside the altar. “He went out that way. Why? Anything wrong?”

  “Everything!” She turned and headed for the corridor.

  “Wait, Dr. Murphy! I need your information.”